Family friend Andy Jones, who runs the Crime Through Time museum in Littledean, Gloucestershire, paid tribute to his friend of many years.

"She was always a very brave, caring, much-loved lady and mother who had survived appalling torture and abuse at the hands of evil serial killers Fred and Rose West," he said.

Mrs Roberts, who was a key witness in Rose West's trial, was abducted and sexually attacked at the "House of Horrors" where she worked as a nanny in 1972. She had been picked up by the pair hitch-hiking aged 17.